I’ve given a lot of thought to succession planning for chairs since I became aware of the NGA’s policy that no chair of governors should remain in post continuously in the same school for more than six years. (Why six? I’ve not yet had a satisfactory answer to that). It’s over two years since I wrote a blog post arguing in favour of chairs’ terms of office being limited, though I’ve yet to be convinced that six years is the magic number.

In any case I was getting to a time when it had to become personal and, at the end…